Joining Knowledge forces for Sustainable Transport policies in Africa

01/12/2024

–

14/10/2025

Themes

Institutional Strengthening & Capacity Building, Stakeholder Engagement Processes

Country

Global

Client

Agora Verkehrswende

This report presents the a systematic mapping and analysis of African think tanks and research organisations working on sustainable transport. It aims to understand the current ecosystem, capacities, challenges, and collaboration potential of these organisations, ultimately to inform the creation of a permanent African Sustainable Transport Network.

The project was jointly conducted by Agora Verkehrswende and Transport for Cairo (TfC) as part of the Rethinking Transport project, implemented by Agora Verkehrswende and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). This first edition of the report is intended as a starting point for connecting organisations and is a living document.

The report acts as both a diagnostic and a call to action. It highlights that Africa’s sustainable transport community is vibrant but fragmented, knowledgeable but underfunded, and ready to collaborate if given the right institutional and financial support.

The findings pave the way for:

Creating a regional knowledge network
Supporting African-led research
Integrating transport into broader climate and development agendas

African regions covered

organisations featured in the
report

countries covered within the African region

Key takeaways

The landscape of organisations working towards sustainable transport policy across Africa is evolv ing fast.

Half the surveyed organisations were founded within the past ten years and almost three-quarters within the past 20 years. The ecosystem is diverse, comprising NGOs, academia, government-affiliated institutions and for-profit organisations. Southern Africa hosts more than a third of the organisations (eight of these are in South Africa), followed by Eastern (mostly in Kenya) and Western Africa (mostly in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire), which host around a quarter of the organisations, respectively.

While many organisations work on both the mobility and energy transition in transport, the majority are focused on the mobility transition.

Approximately one-third of organisations are working on both the energy and mobility transition in transport, i.e., looking at the accessibility of shared and active modes of transport as well as the electrification and energy transition in transport. Amongst the organisations specialising in one pillar, almost twice as many focus on the mobility transition than on the energy transition.

Funding is a global barrier to the growth and impact of organisations.

One of the most critical chal lenges for organisations is financial stability, a longstanding global issue across the sector in many countries. Limited and unstable funding hinders organisations’ long-term strategic planning, talent retention and effectiveness. Almost two-thirds of organisations depend mainly on international funders such as development banks and philanthropies for their funding, and this presents an untapped opportunity for leveraging domestic and continental philanthropies and funders to prioritise organisations working in the field of sustainable transport policy.

National governments are regarded as central actors for action to take place.

Government stake holders are considered the primary target of engagement by nearly all organisations, with only one exception. Organisations aim to support policy development and reform, positioning themselves as partners in the public-led transformation of transport systems. Only about half of the organisations receive any funding from national governments. Still, governments are their main target audience. Since most organisations do not rely on government funding, this shows that they remain relatively independent.

Collaboration through community building across African countries can enhance impact.

All organisa tions emphasised the importance of partnerships. The main drivers for collaborations include creating synergies between work programmes, combining complementary skillsets for joint projects and facil itating knowledge exchange. Partnerships with international organisations are particularly valued as they raise the profile of local actors. At the same time, organisations face challenges in engaging deci sion-makers and establishing long-term collaborations. Strengthening connections between organi sations themselves and with potential funders, through initiatives such as a community platform for sustainable transport organisations in Africa, could amplify their collective voice, foster knowledge sharing and enhance regional coordination across the continent